Inside Her Head
by MargaretFullerSlack
Summary: I thought I had found my way into Cory's teenage head, but when I read it through yesterday I realized it was my own. I had my boyfriend read it too, and he agreed; this was me ten years ago...


Santa Monica, California 1987

Cory put down the phone and sighed. Why couldn't her grandmother be just like other grandmothers? Nice and caring, funny and loving? Why did she have to be so darn concerned all the time? Why couldn't she just understand that Cory was now 17 years old and did just fine? That she was growing up to be a young woman who could take care of her self? Why would she still treat her like she was a child? She so often wanted to yell at her grandmother on the phone when she started treating her like a little girl again, or when she spent the weekend over at her house and got told over and over again what to do and how to behave. Cory just wanted to be let alone and take care of her own thoughts and actions. Was that so difficult to understand? Was it so difficult for Gran to see that she didn't need her to cope, that she had gotten through the seven roughest years of her life on her own, in her own way, that she didn't need a babysitter. Someone who constantly fussed over her.

And what she really didn't need was some old woman to tell her when to go and visit her mother's grave, she could do that just fine herself. Besides, if she should visit her mother's grave all the times her grandmother tolled her to, she wouldn't have time to do anything else. She wouldn't be able to hang out with her friends or d her homework. And all she ever wanted was just to be a normal girl, a normal teenager. It was bad enough for her to see all her friends and the way they behaved with their mothers, her grandmother constantly reminding her that she was motherless just made it a lot worse. No one can really understand what it feels like unless they're in the situation themselves, and luckily not too many of her age are.

'Stop listening to her' her brother had said some days ago 'that's what I do, I just nod and say 'yes'. That's all she wants to hear anyway'.

'Easy for you to say, you're not the girl who's supposed to take care of the poor men in the family who are incapable of doing anything because your mother and wife died seven years ago. I'm the one who's got to take responsibility now according to her!' All the frustration made her burst into tears, and she hated crying in front of her brother. And she hated the fact that they never really talked about their mother. They were both in the same situation, they should understand each other, they should support each other; but they didn't. They both suffered in their own ways: He in silence, she in a desperate fight against the tears after every phone call from Gran.

Cory sat down on her bed with tears running down her cheek. Not tears because she still mourned her mother, but tears of guilt. She felt guilty about not showing her grandmother more respect, and hating her so much during these weekly calls about her mother. She felt guilty because she knew her grandmother was right; she didn't visit her mother's grave often enough, she didn't take care of her brother and father the way she should – they were in pain too, she knew that. She knew her grandmother was right when she said that she now needed to take care of the household, she was old enough to take care of those two, so she should do just that. And last, but not least, she felt guilty about feeling so darn selfish all the time. She still had a house, a father, a brother, a grandmother too, she didn't have it all that bad come to think of it. There are so many people in the world starving, and completely orphaned children, or poor people, and people living in refugee camps in the African deserts. So why the hell did she feel so miserable?

Oh how she wished she could talk to somebody about the pain she felt. The one she felt every time she thought of her mother. The one she felt every time after hanging up with her grandmother. The one she felt every time she noticed her brother's depression kicking in. The one she felt every time she saw her friends and their mothers. She shouldn't be jealous, but she couldn't help herself.

She so often missed the way her and her mother could talk without saying a word, the hugs they shared, the times they laughed together for no reason, how they would sit in the sofa at night; Cory at her mother's feet while she gently played with her hair. And every day she had to listen to her friends talk about their mothers, she looked at them and saw all the mother-daughter love between them; even if they were fighting.

The worst thing about growing up without a mother was the knowledge that you would never share special moments with anyone, like they are portrayed on TV and film. She would never be able to tell anyone her deepest secrets. She wouldn't have anyone there for her when she was old enough to start her own family. Who was she to turn to with her insecurities? Who was she to go to for advice? Sure she had friends, but that's not at all the same. Friends with mothers.

Sometimes she wished she could just be like everyone else, that her family was like everyone else's. She wished she didn't have to feel so stupid and ashamed about her family. Every time she met someone new she had to gain their confidence before she even dared thinking about telling them that she didn't have a mother. People are afraid of dead people, and especially dead mothers. You're not supposed to talk about it because it makes other people unconformable, embarrassed even, because you don't have a mother.

Why the hell is there such a concept as the big, happy family anyway? Who lives in such a perfect word? Don't we all dream of another reality than our own? Show me the one family we all try to copy; the one with the mother, the father and the child – all smiling and happy in front of their big house with a big yard for the child to play in and the mother to grow her plants in and the father to barbecue in during the summer? Do we really believe that this family exists, and do we really deep down inside want to be like that, or are we just fooling ourselves? If all the children born here on earth, had been reared somewhere on a farm, and their fathers and mothers had been given their freedom to live and enjoy, change mates if they wished, taken off to some far off paradise, killed themselves, do you think that the world had been any worse?

'You're doom thinking again, Cory, doom thinking.' She said to her self and wiped her tears.


End file.
